Argument for the Experimental Manipulations - Psychology Hypothesis Generating Assessment

Introduction

Researchers have been trying to determine whether stimulus is perceived even without awareness, This process is described in (Merikle, Smilek & Eastwood, 2001) as they investigated humans reactions to unconscious processes. Study in this area is needed and there is a continual interest as the idea of subconscious perception does not fit into the belief that stimulus must be coupled with the awareness of perception for it to influence any feelings or thoughts. (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963) argue that both conscious and unconscious attention is an issue of contention in cognitive psychology as is described as when there may or may not be attention paid to the surroundings but this information is being processed regardless. Researchers are interested in studying attention further and want to determine what stimulus is processed consciously and how it differs when the stimulus is still processed even when the conscious attention is directed elsewhere. Research shows that the conscious mind controls which stimulus receives attention. A conscious effort whilst processing stimulus shows that individuals are in control of their thinking processes and are actively evaluation their choices in situations however when the brain is processing stimulus unconsciously, there is a lack of awareness whilst making decisions. Researchers are interested in determining whether positive or negatively valanced words are a factor as to whether stimulus is processed more effectively. A conscious effort whilst processing stimulus shows that individuals are in control of their thinking processes and are actively evaluation their choices in situations however when the brain is processing stimulus unconsciously, there is a lack of awareness whilst making decisions. Based on this premise, it is important to continue research into the effect that stimulus that is perceived unconsciously has on the reactions shown by individuals in thinking and behaving.

Masked repetition priming has been described as when an individual is more accurate in responding to a repetition primed target word as opposed to an unrelated target word (Bodner and Stalinsky, 2008). The authors also state that masked priming is automatic and there is also a level of priming that occurs at a subconscious level. Semantic priming is the response of the target word being faster when its followed by the semantically related prime word when it is compared to a control. A word which is masked to aid in unawareness is known as a masked prime word, this word is then displayed for a short time before the target word so that individuals are not going to be focused on it this word. This unconscious processing tool is used as a priming technique and is to measure an individual’s memory recall and the identification of words (Bodner and Stalinsky, 2008).

3. Building an argument for the experimental manipulations used in our study (120 words)

You need to find evidence that words with different types of emotional valence might be processed differently than other types of words.

Relevant starter references:

• Merikle, Smilek, & Eastwood (2001)

You should also include your own references for this

You need to find evidence that spare cognitive resources or attention might influence the way we process stimuli.

Relevant starter references:

• Bodner and Stalinsky (2008)
• Heyman et al (2015) [note they use conscious priming]

You may also want to include your own references here

4. Introducing the notion of individual differences (120 words)
Finally, apart from stimulus type and cognitive load, it might be the case that some people are simply more affected by certain characteristics of stimuli than others. You need to find evidence for this, i.e. that individual differences might predict performance on a cognitive task like ours. 

The references for the two scales we used are listed in the reference list but you DO NOT need to read them. Please assume they measure what they claim to measure.

• You will need to find a reference and build your own argument for how individual differences might influence responses to emotional stimuli.

5. Generating hypotheses
You will complete your introduction with three main hypotheses that relate to our two experimental manipulations (emotional valence of stimuli and cognitive load), and to the notion of individual differences (anxiety and happiness). Your hypotheses will depend on the papers you read.

Some example hypotheses are:

• It was hypothesised, based on xxxxx, that there would be less of a priming effect for both negative and positive words in the cognitive load task.

• Based on yyyy, it was hypothesised that priming would be stronger for negative words for participants who scored high on anxiety ad priming would be stronger for positive words for people who scored high on happiness.

Remember that the hypotheses come from the literature – that is, you are building an argument from the references you read, not from your personal guess as to what will happen. The direction of your hypotheses should match the arguments you are building. It does not matter if the data did not end up supporting your hypotheses. It is possible to have two competing hypotheses in the same assignment (e.g. 'According to Bloggs and Smith (2002), we would expect more priming for condition A, however according to Jones (2004) we would expect no priming for condition A but greater effects in condition B'). The data will then help distinguish which one is correct. You can then use our findings in your discussion to describe which theory or theories were supported and what our findings mean for these theories and for the direction of future research.